Crystal Moments
by SkyeRose
Summary: Looking at his two friends—really looking at them—Daniel felt like he was intruding on something more intimate than any act of, well, intimacy. They never moved—Jack's hands never strayed, Sam never shifted…they remained perfectly still. Without warning, Daniel felt the burn of his own tears as a lump clogged his throat.- Set during 'Crystal Skull,' SamJack, OneShot


**Crystal Moments**

**A/N: This idea has been bouncing around in my head for years and I finally sat myself down and said no more excuses! It didn't end the way I intended it to, but I think I like this version. It's more lighthearted than the original plan and throws in the slightest hint of DanJan…also a plus in my book.**

**Enjoy!**

Daniel didn't feel the push of air as the door closed in his face. He couldn't remember ever in his life really _feeling_ the gust of air from a closing door, but now he missed it. He missed the stale, almost chilled air of the SGC and a very familiar pang of regret twisted in his heart. Though, that regret had never been the direct result of recycled air before…

Turning, Daniel walked down the hall, his mind taking a much needed break from trying to solve his predicament. He'd been going over what he knew about the situation—which wasn't much—for hours now. Hours and hours and he was no closer to figuring out what to do. Not that it mattered much if he _did_ figure it out. It wasn't like he had any way of relaying his findings to anyone else.

Was he dead? Trapped in limbo? Purgatory? _Hell_? Probably not the last one, he realized upon further pondering. It seemed highly unlikely that this, of all things, would be his personal hell. All things considered, really, this wasn't that bad. Annoying? Absolutely. Unsettling? Getting there. But hell? Not quite.

Blinking in the sudden gloom, Daniel realized he was inside Sam's lab, though he had absolutely zero memory of how he'd gotten there or when. And why was it so dark? Had Sam left? No, no there she was. Blinking rapidly behind his glasses, Daniel focused on the blonde hair glinting in the light of its owner's many blinky machines. Her chin was propped up in her hand, which, in turn, was propped up by her elbow which was propped up on her work table. Her eyes were downcast, staring at a spread of pictures and articles all pertaining to the Ballard Skull.

"I just don't see the connection." Sam threw the hand that wasn't propping up her head into the air, frustration lacing through her voice.

Fighting the urge to answer—it's not like she could hear him—Daniel was so caught off guard when another voice _did_ answer her that he stumbled right into one of the circuit boards lining the lab. Flinching before he realized he couldn't do any actual damage, Daniel righted himself, and stepped back into the room.

"You will, Carter." His voice seemed to float from everywhere in the room. Had Jack become a pseudo-omniscient presence too?

Sam half-turned in her seat, fixing her gaze somewhere behind her. "Your faith in me is nice, sir. Really." Daniel could hear her trying to smile. But he could also hear her failing.

Apparently, so could Jack.

With an exaggerated sigh, Jack stood from his surprisingly comfortable position on the floor of Sam's lab, ignoring the pops and creaks issuing from his protesting knees. He'd been propped up against her wall for the better part of an hour, watching her try to figure things out, and lending an encouraging epithet when he could. They could never tell anyone this, but, sometimes, when Sam was faced with a particularly vexing problem, she and Jack would sit in her lab for hours. Just them. Usually no words and certainly never anything remotely close to touching.

But his presence was enough.

So here they sat. Colonel and Major, alone in her lab. Well, not really alone anymore, but they didn't know that. Coming to stand behind her, he glanced over her head at the diagrams of the Ballard Skull, eyes tracing the contours Sam must have memorized by now. He was loathe to admit it, but Rothman had summed it up pretty well when he'd proclaimed the skull a, well…a skull.

"I don't get it, sir." Sam huffed a sigh, her back still to him. She had felt him approach and, with no small amount of trepidation, noticed that there seemed to be a direct correlation between his proximity and the lessening of tension in her shoulders. "I don't understand how just looking into this thing's eyes made Daniel disappear."

"I think you mentioned something about nintendos?" Jack grimaced, legitimately unable to think of the right word now that he'd started to associate the particles with a favorite past time of his. He couldn't see her face, but he heard the sharp exhale as she gave a short chuckle. It was moments like these that he was pretty sure he knew his exact purpose in life.

Daniel glanced from Sam to Jack several times. There was something distinctly different in the way both of his friends were holding themselves. She had never seen either one of them so…relaxed? Was that the word? Eyes flicking between them a few more times, Daniel decided that relaxed was, in fact, not the right word. Fluent in more than twenty languages and he couldn't find a single word to accurately describe the tableau he was witnessing.

A long moment of silence stretched across the room as both officers stared at the documents on the table. Shaking his head to clear his mind of the strange thoughts his friends had unintentionally put there, Daniel moved to the table, studying the pictures upside down. He glanced up from his thoughts just in time to see the lone tear slip down Sam's cheek. That too familiar pang tore through his heart again—he hated it when Sam cried. She rarely ever did and usually Daniel was corporeal enough to give her a shoulder to lean on. And now he hated it even more because _he _was the reason she was crying.

Funny, Jack was standing behind her and had no way of seeing her face, but he seemed to know exactly what had happened. "Hey." His voice was soft as he took another step forward. Sam closed her eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. Without looking to see where he was, she leaned back, trusting him to be where she needed him to be.

She wasn't disappointed. Her head fell against his sternum, her back pressed against his stomach. Jack lifted his hands and let himself rest them on her shoulders, squeezing just slightly. No more tears escaped from under her lashes and no actual emotion showed on her face, but Daniel could feel the sadness and relief radiating from her in equal parts.

Looking at his two friends—really _looking_ at them—Daniel felt like he was intruding on something more intimate than any act of, well, intimacy. They never moved—Jack's hands never strayed, Sam never shifted…they remained perfectly still, their breathing moving their chests in tandem. Without warning, Daniel felt the burn of his own tears as a lump clogged his throat.

Turning abruptly, he strode straight through the wall and out into the hallway He shouldn't have been in there, he never should have seen that. He didn't know what those moments had meant to his friends, but they had kept it from him for a reason and now he had completely invaded their privacy.

And he had seen something in them that he knew he would never have himself—not again. Not after Sha're…

Swallowing hard against the painful lump still residing in his throat, Daniel looked over his shoulder, at the closed door of Sam's lab. So much was going on beyond that door, but at the same time, nothing at all was happening. And he hadn't even _known_. Another sadness—a different kind of sadness, but no less profound—filled him. They were supposed to be friends, no…family. They were supposed to be this really cohesive unit, 'can't tell where one ends and the rest begin' kind of thing and they'd kept it from him.

And now he knew, but they didn't know he knew, and he could never tell them he knew. Daniel had never been a "punching the wall" type and, _of_ _course_, he would only get the desire to do just that when he physically couldn't. _'Stupid eyeballs.'_ He groaned inwardly and pressed his palms against his said accursed eyeballs.

This wasn't supposed to be this hard. He wasn't supposed to still be stuck wherever he was stuck and he certainly wasn't supposed to trounce on every bit of privacy and trust he shared with his best friends. Did Teal'c know? The thought stopped him cold. Had they only left him out?

Did they even know?

The thought came unbidden and completely out of left field. Blood pounded in his ears as a new certainty washed over him. They didn't. And now he did. He knew and they didn't know and Teal'c probably knew too and god knows how many other people.

He shouldn't have been in there.

Momentarily forgetting that he would not bounce off the wall, but rather fall through it, he threw his fist as hard as he could at the concrete. Generally, not a smart idea, but doubly so when nothing physical can actually impede you.

Really, it would have been funny if Daniel wasn't so desperate. He had flung himself straight back into the lion's den. Squeezing his eyes shut before he had a chance to actually see anything, he took a deep breath, intent on walking out of the office blind. It's not like he would get hurt in the process.

But something stopped him. The air felt different in the room.

Letting one eye winch open, he swept the room. He didn't see either of his friends, so he let the other eye open too. Looking closer, he spotted a pair of booted feet sticking out from behind one of Sam's cabinets. Panic coursed through him, propelling him forward just as a little red ball bounced straight through his knee. He stopped, dumbfounded.

Sam let out a little noise of triumph as the ball landed squarely in her palm, before she let it fly in a steep arc. Spinning on his heel, Daniel saw Jack sitting on the floor across Sam's lab, back braced against the door. "Nice." He grinned at her, one of the smiles that actually reaches his eyes.

Irrationally leaping out of the way as the little ball was loosed from Jack's fingers, he stared in amazement at the two on the floor. They formed such a different picture than the one they had five minutes ago. _'But is it really all that different?'_ Daniel pondered that for a minute. He came to the conclusion that no, no it really wasn't so different. More light-hearted, but still a side to both he had rarely seen before and certainly never with each other. That telltale prickling behind his eyes began again, but Daniel shoved it away. This wasn't a time for him to be sad or reflective. This was a time for him to just…_be_.

He knew that he was completely at the mercy of his friends on this one. It was solely up to them how this thing played out…and he trusted them wholeheartedly. They would figure out how to bring him home. They always did. Sliding down the wall between Sam and Jack, he let his elbows rest on his knees as he watched the two officers bounce the ball back and forth. Sometimes one of them would purposely throw too hard and the other would have to half-crawl from their position to get it.

"Hey guys." Daniel began, well aware he was talking to himself. "I just want you to know that I get it. I do." A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth when Sam laughed, the sound light and unencumbered. He tried to feel at least a little offended; he was still trapped after all and to anyone not on SG-1 it might seem a little insensitive for Sam and Jack to be playing a child's game at the moment.

But all Daniel felt was grateful. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve such an amazing adoptive family, but as he watched Jack watch Sam, his heart felt whole and broken at the same time. He knew what a wonderful feeling unconditional love was; had known it with Sha're for such a brief moment. He didn't want Sam and Jack to ever know his pain.

He had seen the pain for his own questionable well being in Sam's eyes only minutes ago, so it was with a strange sense of contentment that Daniel silently gave his blessing. Jack had just _known_…he had felt the shift in Sam's needs and he had done everything in his power to accommodate them.

"I…accept this." Daniel pressed his hands against his thighs, fighting the faint burn of jealousy. He was bigger than that. They were bigger than that. "But if you hurt her, Jack, I'll kill you."

Across the room, Jack went very still, the red ball rolling past his outstretched fingers and bouncing off the door. "Sir?" Sam pushed herself onto her knees and shuffled to the other side of the room, settling herself in front of him. "Everything okay?"

For a split second, Daniel thought for sure that Jack looked straight at him. Then the moment passed and he turned to look at the woman in front of him. "You know, Carter? I think everything is going to be just fine."

Sam smiled softly, her fingers alighting on his knee before she stood and reached down a hand for his. "Yes, sir." Jack looked from her eyes to her outstretched hand, an enigmatic smile curling across his mouth. Slowly he took her fingers and stood, barely enough space between them to slip a piece of paper. Unbidden, Daniel's grandmother's voice floated back to him from so many years ago. _"Don't forget to leave room for Jesus!"_

The snort that burst from him at the thought was loud enough to wake the dead, but completely unheard by everyone else in the room. At least, unheard by their ears. Sam shivered , feeling the odd chill sweep down her back. Looking up at Jack, she saw him glance surreptitiously around the room before looking back at her, eyes twinkling. He shrugged one shoulder and cocked his head towards the door. "Cake?"

Daniel cringed at the heated undercurrent in Jack's voice and was suddenly, completely, and without a doubt positive that the other man had said it that way for his benefit. Sam seemed to know that too, but didn't take it personally. "Always." She practically purred and Daniel felt satisfactorily vindicated when Jack cleared his throat abruptly.

As they left the room, knuckles just brushing each other's, Daniel shook his head and looked around the room. He was _not_ going to follow those two; he didn't think he could handle anymore of the emotions they stirred in him. Though, there was a sort of freedom in knowing he could actually _feel_ those feelings and not have anyone be witness to it. 

Making a mental note to corner his two friends sometime in the near future, Daniel strode towards the infirmary. He couldn't explain it, but he had the strangest feeling something very important was there waiting for him.

**END**

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**


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